Chris Mannix from CNNSI talks about how Bosh's You Tube gag has brought his profile to "new heights" around the NBA. Good read ... check it out.

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Originally Posted by CNNSI

Let's talk about The Video. You know the one. That grainy, 77-second window into Chris Bosh's personality that has made the Toronto Raptors' All-Star power forward an overnight Internet sensation, one on par with Andy Milonakis, Numa Numa and Paris Hilton. (O.K., maybe not Paris, but definitely Perez.) Thanks to a $300 Sony Handicam, a Western wardrobe and a little tech savvy, Bosh has emerged from the relative anonymity that comes with playing on the only NBA team north of the border. His now famous YouTube clip -- which features the 6' 10", 230-pound Bosh, clad in a black cowboy hat, a black blazer, a white shirt and a bolo tie that would have made John Wayne proud, channeling his inner used-car salesman in a pronounced Texas drawl while urging fans to punch his name on the All-Star ballot -- has become more popular than an average NHL broadcast. (Through Sunday it had been viewed 440,803 times on YouTube, plus an untold number more on Bosh's website, chris-bosh.com.) "It has become bigger than I could have imagined," says Bosh. "The Internet is the most powerful tool in the world. It's everywhere."

Since Bosh first posted The Video in late December, it has also run on CNN, ESPN, TSN and virtually every regional sports network in the United States and Canada. Over the last few weeks the team's public relations office has been inundated with requests from TV stations looking for original copies. Fans approach Bosh almost daily wanting to talk about it. "It's the accent," says Bosh, a Dallas native. "People keep coming up to me asking me to do it." When the Raptors were in New York last month, one fan shouted at Bosh that he had watched the video but still didn't vote for him. "Now that was funny," says Bosh.